"Volunteers Collective XIX - "Vexations"": Fortunately for my abysmal state-of-mind, my friend Rob Johnston came from Toronto to stay with me for a little while at the Funny Farm. Rob & I had met through being in the same band in München, Klauhütte Bangzeit 200. He can be seen MCing & I can be seen singing in my movie entitled "Boota" ( https://youtu.be/19_pe-nT9u0 ). That group performed 3 exotica songs in many variations in 12 hour marathons. This marathon approach had been somewhat influenced by Erik Satie's "Vexations". For this session, we decided to perform a perversion of "Vexations" in the Turquoise, Beige, & Flesh Room at the Funny Farm. The movie from this is one of the only documents of my living at the Funny Farm & probably the ONLY vaudeo document of me playing electronics there. Rob plays Vexations on prepared piano & I play my Triple-S gear. I start off playing kitchen samples that were recorded at the Funny Farm. The Trombone Sequences were probably fairly new at that point. By the time of this session, I was reasonably expert at playing my instruments. People interested in older tech might enjoy my frequent floppy disc changes. The movie is broken into 2 parts. The shot changes for Part 2 & a sequence driving a piano sample can be heard of "Vexations" playing in tandem with Rob's version. My sequencer had a 333 note limit so we may've had to cheat a bit. In this 2nd part, I even play my "Terrence Dougherty" a bit. Footage of my playing that is also rare. Revisiting this 24 years later, I am once again amazed at how much I like it. Rob's patient prepared piano variations set the perfect pace for my mutant bombardments to relate to. Rob was a good friend. Alas, he died not long after this. R.I.P. Rob Johnston. A sidenote of interest to some might be that Rob had worked with Conlon Nancarrow in Mexico on, if I remember correctly, fine-tuning &/or repairing Nancarrow's player pianos. - May 30, 2019 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

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